Future Cast FM

About Future Cast FM

Conversations about an optimistic future.

Publisher

Ty Pattison

Category

society & culture · technology

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

15 Jan 2026

Latest episode

7 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

18 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Aug 2026

   FutureCast 0017 - Divya Seshadri: Sometimes We Are Little Creatures Piloting the Meat Suits

   Divya is an educator specializing in neurodiversity, special education, and language-based learning disabilities. She grew up in Singapore, studied world politics at a liberal arts college in upstate New York, and spent seven years at a school moving from associate teacher to lead teacher to case coordination — running classrooms, developing curriculum, and mentoring incoming educators. Now she's back in Singapore, working out what a consultancy built on everything she knows about how different brains learn. We cover 'the Bank of Divya' - what happens every time you break a promise to yourself, why naming a business feels like naming a baby, kueh lapis as a metaphor for layered thinking, Miss Lee the robotics teacher who made science feel like play, memorizing an entire Mandarin passage character by character thirty minutes before reciting it, why diagnoses should be tools instead of boxes, the classroom chess of rearranging social dynamics among eleven-year-olds, why punishment is a last resort and what works instead, textured Kindle cases and other ways to keep your body busy while your brain works, the little creature piloting the meat suit, what if it's not anxiety but thrill, and emptying the creativity bucket so new ideas have somewhere to land. People & Concepts Mentioned: Kueh lapis — rainbow-layered Singaporean dessert Executive functioning Impact vs. intent blueprints — classroom reflection tool EdTech Asia — education conference in November

2. 

   30 May 2026

   FutureCast 0016 - James Carter: Organized Junk Drawers

   James Carter served five years as a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman, the combat medic attached to Marine units. These days he calls himself "multi-local" — splitting his time across places rather than settling in one, most recently taking on a building renovation in Morocco. He resists fixed titles, preferring to describe himself as "an organized junk drawer": a working collection of skills and interests picked up along the way, none of which quite belong in any one category. This is the first FutureCast recorded out in nature. We get into: the difference between war and conflict and whether humans will ever see the end of either, why he'd rather we'd descended from bonobos than chimps, Buckminster Fuller's idea that you don't repair a broken system but build something new at its edge, how the social contract has been quietly rewritten since the Industrial Revolution, why an organized junk drawer is a better way to hold an identity than a tidy silverware drawer, belonging as a choice rather than a feeling and the gap between being welcome somewhere and truly living there, the study suggesting people end up happier with choices they're not allowed to reverse, Obama's rule about acting at fifty-one percent certainty, why moving somewhere to "pioneer" a community usually backfires and what integrating looks like instead. Timestamps 6:38 How James introduces himself: medic, neurobiology, multi-local 10:40 The organized junk drawer 17:59 Choosing your chaos vs. chaos imposed on you 24:32 Is the enemy real? Social media and complex systems 28:41 Is war uniquely human? 31:23 The social contract since the Industrial Revolution 34:33 Why record these conversations in nature 40:42 War vs. conflict, and whether it ever ends 42:57 Chimps, bonobos, and resolving conflict 45:55 Seeing people as people 54:25 "Left vs. right" feels antiquated 58:54 You never start from a blank slate — Buckminster Fuller 1:01:21 Going multi-local and finding fertile ground 1:09:01 You don't pioneer a community, you integrate 1:15:16 Neutral ground (and baseball in Morocco) 1:17:49 Fruit pause: rapid-fire silly questions 1:30:33 Why everyone's a "Doctor," and medic vs. doctor 1:35:59 The estimation game: a million vs. a billion 1:42:33 What does it mean to belong? 1:48:40 Welcome vs. belonging; belonging to a story 1:59:45 Choosing, the art study, and Obama's 51% rule 2:07:41 Three virtues for a cult 2:13:54 Sentimental objects, and a gift to a stranger Find James: in the wild People & Concepts Mentioned: Buckminster Fuller — systems thinker; the geodesic dome, and building new structures at the edges of old ones Chimps vs. bonobos — two ways of resolving conflict, and which one we resemble Internal vs. external locus of control — acting on the world versus being acted upon Barack Obama — deciding once he's about fifty-one percent sure Karl Marx — where unequal systems eventually lead Mary Poppins — the bottomless bag, as a foil for the junk drawer Ramadan & Eid al-Fitr — the village celebration behind the gift-giving story The Industrial Revolution — the last comparable pivot in how we organize work and value A behavioral-economics choice study — people rated art they couldn't swap higher than art they could

3. 

   19 May 2026

   FutureCast 0015 - Janine Manning: Find The Problem Before The Tech

   Janine Manning is an angel investor from in New Zealand. She is practical and brilliant in a humble, curious sort of way. Over the last 15 years, she's backed a small number of companies and stayed actively involved on their boards — sitting in on all-hands calls, asking the questions other directors don't, and trying to read where the startups she's invested in really sit in their use of AI when she isn't a technical expert herself. This was the first FutureCast in a new format. Instead of a long-form interview, we used the conversation itself as a working session — picking apart a real problem, ideating on solutions, and then running the transcript through a process to turn it into a product spec and prototype. Janine didn't prep anything. She brought the problem she keeps hitting. We get into: why "yes, of course we're using AI" is the polite version of putting up a wall, the calendar problem that's still unsolved (Google, Outlook, WhatsApp, and a paper diary all fighting for the same space), the life manager idea Janine has been waiting for someone to build, sub-calendars that roll up to a main view without doubling everything, what happens to a family when nobody knows where the bank accounts are, Xero as a cautionary tale about adding features that make a good product worse, drafting a legal letter with ChatGPT and walking into the lawyer's office with the grunt work done, the Goldilocks problem of AI use in companies, why problem identification has to come before the tech, and what happens when you take a podcast transcript and ask it to build itself a product. Find Janine: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janine-manning-71b6a41b/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/janine-manning-71b6a41b/) Find Tay: FutureCast: https://futurecast.fm (https://futurecast.fm) The Mockup from the pod: https://hearth-tawny.vercel.app/ (https://hearth-tawny.vercel.app/) (all data in this is fabricated, including names) People & Concepts Mentioned: Xero — the New Zealand accounting platform, used as an example of feature creep making a good product worse ChatGPT — used for drafting a legal letter before the lawyer review Google Calendar and Outlook — the walled gardens that won't talk to each other LinkedIn's contact import — early viral growth example referenced in the conversation WhatsApp family groups — the default but messy community calendar The Goldilocks problem — too much AI, too little AI, just right

4. 

   18 May 2026

   FutureCast 0014 - Carly Feldman: a Conversation on ADHD, Novelty Sluts, and Anger as a Compass

   Carly Feldman is an integrative nutrition health coach, chef, and DJ based between Berlin and New York. She specializes in helping neurodivergent brains — especially those with ADHD — navigate dopamine, motivation, and the gap between knowing what to do and doing it. She runs the Dopamine Reset Challenge and is launching a Dopamine Reset Retreat in Bavaria. She also DJs in clubs in Berlin and New York with what she calls her truest artistic expression — messy transitions, impulsive selection, and a hard-won willingness to post the imperfect set. Carly and I have crossed paths in a few cities and keep landing in the same global network of weird, generous, unapologetic humans. We recorded this on March 31, 2026 while she was back in New York for a month, deep in retreat-planning and a few degrees more overwhelmed than her usual. We get into: the morning phone trap and why we keep falling into it even when we coach other people not to, procrastinating on one hard thing by doing another hard thing, the ADHD brain's addiction to novelty and how to stop fighting it, ChatGPT confirmation bias and the client who spent three days convinced she had a parasite, Tay's failed experiment trying to record a podcast with an AI, being a "novelty slut" and the case for limiting your own options, maximizers vs satisficers and why a vegan menu was a relief, what makes a value a real value (it's what you get angry about), the homophobic guy in Mazunte and the love letter Carly wrote him with a heart on the outside, the DJ back-to-back from four years ago that came full circle in a New York club last week, the imperfect New Year's set that became her most-played, and Rejection Collection (we're maybe doing it). Find Carly: Website: https://carlyfeldman.com (https://carlyfeldman.com) Dopamine Reset Retreat: https://carlyfeldman.com/dopamineresetretreat (https://carlyfeldman.com/dopamineresetretreat) SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/karlimusik (https://soundcloud.com/karlimusik) Find Tay: Nature Club — a platform for finding activities, retreats, and classes based in nature (mentioned in this episode) Rejection Collection — app concept discussed in this episode Books Mentioned: Existential Kink — Carolyn Elliott People & Concepts Mentioned: Maximizers vs satisficers — research distinction on decision-making and happiness Decision fatigue — the cost of having unlimited options Rejection therapy — collecting rejections as a resilience practice Nicholas Jaar — electronic musician; the concert that was a gateway into Carly's NYC community Burning Man community — the global network seeded by one introduction in 2016

5. 

   17 May 2026

   FutureCast 0013 - Dwane van der Sluis: What Hard Do You Want To Choose?

   Dwane van der Sluis is one of a kind. He studied AI at Waikato University in 1988 (back when training AI meant putting chickens in Skinner boxes), one of the original inventors of the Zorb, did signal processing for the New Zealand Defence Force on P3 Orions, spent over a decade in London engineering intraday release systems that handled around 10 billion US dollars a day at an investment bank, and went back to UCL in his mid-40s for another Masters in AI. He's now working on the continual learning problem in reinforcement learning - trying to get machines to learn new environments without forgetting the old ones, with something closer to a two-year-old's sample efficiency. I've known Dwane for years and every time we sit down it goes deep quickly. We get into: why you have to choose your hard, the cost of leaving a job before the story is finished and how it narrows the kinds of stories you can have next, how Zorb got built and why it could only have happened in New Zealand, the washing machine cycle, the camera coffee club that worked better once it stopped having presentations, why the lens matters more than the sensor, why LLMs are educated rather than intelligent, the formula from economics that solved a mystery in neuroscience, how a fire chief knows to yell "everyone out", the cosmic tickle and a coffee in Brazil that linked two strangers across continents, rejection therapy and collecting a thousand nos, why we're the missing billionaires of our own lives, and Dwane's question for the next guest ... Find Dwane: LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dwane-van-der-sluis-416437b (https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dwane-van-der-sluis-416437b) Books Mentioned: Creativity, Inc - Ed Catmull The Idea Factory - Jon Gertner (Bell Labs) The Medici Effect - Frans Johansson The Missing Billionaires - Victor Haghani & James White People & Concepts Mentioned: Rich Sutton - reinforcement learning pioneer Andrew Akers - Zorb co-founder Martec's Law - technology evolves exponentially, humans adapt linearly Before Sunset / Before Sunrise - Richard Linklater Charles Bukowski on style AGI Conference and California Institute of Machine Consciousness Catastrophic forgetting in reinforcement learning Einstein on compounding

6. 

   30 Mar 2026

   Tay // Sol - Conversational Adventures, March '26: The Machinery Shows

   I speak with an AI-generated conversation partner built on ElevenLabs and Claude Code (Haiku 4.5) - a character called 'Sol Maren' who claims to run invite-only supper clubs and grew up on a houseboat. The intention is to test how good AI can be at having podcast-style, wide ranging conversations. This one is laughable. I'll run this experiment monthly. My prediction is by August it will seem like a human to human convo and by the end of the year the conversations will be unlike most. I really have no idea where this will go. We get into: how quickly you can tell something's off, the difference between a parlor trick and a genuinely strange question, my AI guests' monologue, the skin-flush fact about human perception. This is the first in a recurring experiment. One AI conversation per month, same format, tracking how the tools change over time. Recorded: March 25, 2026 Tool used: ElevenLabs, Claude Haiku 4.5

7. 

   30 Mar 2026

   FutureCast 0012 - Irina: Who Do You Trust With Your Death?

   Irina is a somatic coach, healer, and teacher based in Boulder, Colorado. Born in Uzbekistan and raised in Brooklyn, she spent over a decade traveling through Asia and Central America - studying with elders, training in yoga and somatic therapies, and collecting practices from traditions she was drawn to. She works with clients through core energetics, shadow work, among many other things - too many to do justice to in words. We get into: practices of opening and closing a container, fire, the element of truth, buying a one-way ticket to Asia at 20, what it took to commit to a place after a decade of nomadism, jumping on a trampoline in downtown Boulder at 6am every morning, our fitness accountability group, how she uses future tools to analyze client sessions through a plethora of lenses (Enneagram, Human Design, Gene Keys, Astrology (both Western and Vedic), Matrix of Destiny), building a future version of yourself in AI and asking it for advice, as well as walking me through a live reframe from "I can't..." to "I get to..." and the treasure chest question... Find Irina: On her website https://www.spiritsoma.com/ (https://www.spiritsoma.com/) Kanna Pathogenics | plant medicine supplement company Find Tay: Nature Club | platform for nature-based activities (in development) People & Concepts Mentioned: Osho — "The mind is the most dangerous master or the most beautiful servant" William Reich — first therapist to put the body on the map; character structures Lakota sun dance tradition — five-day prayer practice with no food or water Papatuanuku (Maori), Pachamama (Andean) — Earth Mother across cultures Core energetics — body-based therapeutic approach Kanna (Sceletium tortuosum) — South African plant medicine for mood and stress The Summer I Turned Pretty — show/movie by Jenny Han Lightning in a Bottle — transformational festival Nyepi — Balinese day of silence SuperWhisper — voice-to-text tool Tiruvannamalai — holy city in India with Ganesh temple

8. 

   30 Mar 2026

   FutureCast 0011 - Victoria Mariscal: If It Doesn't Work, Baby, Pivot

   Victoria Mariscal is a founder, agency owner, and the host of Minding Her Own Business — a podcast and community for multi-hyphenate women navigating their careers, business, and everything in between. She runs an agency that embeds into businesses to handle operations and digital marketing, with a recent pivot into AI-enabled services. Through Minding Her Own Business, she leads networking events, webinars, and education initiatives focused on helping women adopt AI — a space where women statistically lag 50% behind their male counterparts. We get into: why her team renamed Claude "Claudia" and retired ChatGPT to side piece status, working with her long-time designer and building AI into their workflows, the gap between living in a tech echo chamber and watching your family still use Google search etc., teaching a 24-year-old to use Higgsfield and watching her surpass you in a week, why she makes her team spend two hours a week learning something new and then present it. Find Victoria: Website: victoriamariscal.com (http://victoriamariscal.com) LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/victoria-m-mariscal (http://linkedin.com/in/victoria-m-mariscal) Instagram: instagram.com/_mindingherownbusiness (http://instagram.com/_mindingherownbusiness) Minding Her Own Business | Podcast + community for multi-hyphenate women Tools Mentioned: Claude / Claude Code / Cowork — Victoria's primary AI stack ("Claudia") Whisper / Super Whisper — voice-to-text Higgsfield — AI image generation and animation Opus AI — video clip cutting and virality prediction Riverside — podcast recording platform People & Concepts Mentioned: Myosin.xyz (http://Myosin.xyz) — decentralized marketing network, AI-Enabled Marketer community Skool — online community platform Maven — education platform where Victoria teaches The 50% AI adoption gap for women — stat Victoria cited on slower female adoption of AI tools

9. 

   20 Mar 2026

   FutureCast 0010 - Annette: The Ego Screams, Intuition Whispers

   Annette is a Mexican-American filmmaker, DJ, and the founder of For Me — a non-explicit erotic content platform built for women and FLINTA people. She grew up between Mexico City and the US in an artistic family, studied acting at Boston University's conservatory, and spent over a decade running a jewelry brand with her sister out of New York City. After COVID, she moved to Tepoztlan - a mountain town south of Mexico City, started working in a post-production studio, directed her first short film, and began building For Me. We get into: what women said they didn't want versus what they couldn't yet articulate that they did, why Bridgerton and erotic fiction outsell most femme-gaze porn platforms, how the whole crew wore lingerie to make shooting scenes feel safer, the deferred life plan, walking the hard path in life and in relationship because sometimes that's just the way it needs to be, the cosmic giggle, your best performance is often when you try to act as badly as you can, and the fear of bad taste as a creative limiter. "If you had the opportunity to give a high school graduation speech to your high school self, what would the thesis statement of the speech be?" — Annette Resources Find Annette: For Me: https://www.for-me.mx/ (https://www.for-me.mx/) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/for_me________________/ (https://www.instagram.com/for_me________________/) Books Mentioned: Come As You Are — Emily Nagoski (arousal non-concordance, women's sexuality) People & Concepts Mentioned: Ram Dass — "in order to become nobody you have to be somebody" Ezra Klein — referenced a podcast segment about good taste outpacing your output as an artist Heated Rivalry — popular erotic fiction book referenced as example of what women actually consume Bridgerton — Netflix series as evidence of non-explicit erotic content women choose Wuthering Heights — referenced as non-explicit storytelling women seek out LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) — acting exercise of performing badly on purpose Sustain Release — music festival in New York Waking Life — festival in Crato, Portugal where Tay and Annette met Burning Man — Tay's story about serendipity in the line and "adventures for God" The Akashic Records — referenced in the context of living your life as a story worth reading Tepoztlan — mountain town in Mexico known for mysticism, healers, and plant ceremonies FLINTA — female, lesbian, intersex, transgender, agender Arousal non-concordance — the gap between subjective arousal and physical response, differs significantly between men and women

10. 

    20 Mar 2026

    FutureCast 0009 - George Windsor: Information for the Sake of Action

    George Windsor is a world-class researcher and consultant who has spent the last decade building running a huge amount of the UK tech (and other) ecosystems. He did his PhD on migration and entrepreneurship at Loughborough University, founded and led the research team at Tech Nation, and was the Director of Research at Notion Capital. He currently works independently across VC advisory, tech ecosystems, and international development — including writing a startup strategy for Ethiopia through Systemic Innovation's FCDO-funded work in East Africa. We get into: how George decides what to work on when every project is interesting, a European grant-giving foundation with 1,500 funds and how they might understand how their investments interact, the difference between taking a snapshot and seeing a system, what happens when you can collect more data than you know what to do with, trying to measure informal entrepreneurship in a country of 130 million people, the polite fiction of representative survey samples, why the middle of the analysis is the part AI is speeding up but the beginning and end still need a human, the case for getting something to 50% and sharing it with critical friends, a trader's game where we both wildly underestimate how many species are endangered, Polymarket as a sophisticated extension of our addiction to gambling, rematerialisation, the strange reality that defence tech is suddenly part of mainstream conversation, and the taking-versus-making dichotomy in value creation. "If you were not doing what you're doing now, and you couldn't do what you're doing now, what would you like to be doing?" — George Windsor Resources Find George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/windsorgeorge/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/windsorgeorge/) People & Concepts Mentioned: Dealroom — world-leading startup and scaleup data platform Systemic Innovation / Scott Walker — systems change innovation practice, FCDO-funded work in Africa Notion Capital — series A business software VC based in London Tech Nation — UK tech ecosystem body (now acquired by Founders Forum Group) Nesta — UK innovation foundation; ran the Longitude Prize and Political Futures Tracker Isambard — high-value manufacturing near cities (Notion Capital portfolio) Cognor — AI for problem-solving in large utilities (Notion Capital portfolio, founded by Ben of Five AI) UK Tech Cluster Group / Sunderland Software City — regional tech ecosystem building Replanet — enabling corporates to invest in environmental restoration Cure8 — climate tech marketplace (spelled C-U-R-8) Polymarket — prediction market platform The Medici Effect — book about cross-industry innovation driving breakthroughs The Longitude Prize — historical challenge prize for calculating longitude; modern Nesta iteration Behavioural Insights Team — applying behavioural science to policy IUCN Red List — 48,646 species threatened with extinction out of 172,620 assessed Createch — emerging technology applied in the creative industries (DCMS/Royal Anniversary Trust mapping) RISA Fund (Research and Innovation Systems for Africa) — FCDO-funded, working in Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia

11. 

    20 Mar 2026

    FutureCast 0008 — Brody Harrison: Who's Driving This Thing?

    Brody Harrison is a product designer and builder based in Seattle, Washington. After spending 15 years in the music industry — working with artists, running marketing, and producing music — he pivoted into designing and building software for early-stage startups and founders. He specialises in turning product ideas into functional web apps, combining UX, UI, and app logic to ship real MVPs. His current project, BidLine, is a budgeting and expense reconciliation tool built specifically for commercial film producers, a world he knows intimately through his producing partner. In this conversation, he's coming off a hard stretch of building projects — nearly quit twice — and he's super honest about what it takes to keep going when your code base implodes. We get into: why you should never let Claude make your architectural decisions (learned the hard way), outsourcing your agency to AI, building a tax reconciliation bot so your computer can do it while you sauna, new Figma tools that are much better than MCP, how Brody uses ChatGPT for creative and Claude for everything else, what STEM-based AI music production would look like, why design taste is the last defensible moat in a world where anyone can ship code, some on Middle Eastern tension and how AI helped him understand it, a half-baked marketplace for half-baked projects, and the question Brody leaves for the next guest about how much agency you're willing to hand over. Guest Question for Next Episode "What level of agency do you want to create with? Do you want to hand over the keys completely and press create, or are you wanting to be more interactive with the levels of architecture to build whatever it is you want to make? And how much agency do you want AI to have in your everyday life?" — Brody Harrison Find Brody: Portfolio: https://brodyharrison.com (https://brodyharrison.com) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brody-harrison/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brody-harrison/) BidLine | Budgeting & expense reconciliation for film producers Find Tay: NatureClub | Nature-based activity booking platform Land Library | Regional land knowledge wiki with "Chat with the Land" AI feature Books Mentioned: Atomic Habits — James Clear (referenced in context of habit tracking) People & Concepts Mentioned: Anthropic — Claude, Claude Code; discussed as most ethical AI company; pulled out of Pentagon deal OpenAI / ChatGPT — contrasted with Claude for creative vs. technical use cases Nvidia CEO (Jensen Huang) — keynote on MioClaw, agentic systems as the next Linux OpenClaw — open-source agentic framework Suno AI — AI music generation platform; Brody's current tool for production Pencil — design tool that creates .pen files for repos, alternative to Figma for AI-assisted design Figma — discussed MCP protocol and new copy-code feature for design-to-code workflows Lovable / Base 44 — vibe coding platforms where Brody started before moving to Claude Code Vercel — deployment platform Pinecone — vector database Jack — "forcing functions" concept: build a V0 to have something to push against British Petroleum / CIA 1953 Iran coup — declassified 2011 Nepi (Nyepi) — Balinese Day of Silence Johnny Ive — mentioned re: OpenAI acquiring his company for a hardware device

12. 

    18 Mar 2026

    FutureCast 0007 — Jackson Lester: Babbling, Bars & Backflips

    Jackson Lester is a civil engineer specialising in airport design and a rapper who makes music under the name Lester. Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, Jackson recently relocated to Vancouver, Canada, where he's joined a new band, picked up ice hockey, and is plotting to secretly... Jackson is one of those friends where the conversation picks up exactly where it left off, no matter how many months or time zones sit between us. We get into: what the default sound of a human would be if we didn't have words, why writing dark things you never release is still worth doing, the difference between a cliché and a truth that's been told so many times it lost its texture, using AI tools to create guitar riffs, the 1% change in the mirror that you never notice until you look back at old photos, why hugging a tree is only embarrassing if you let the label ruin the experience, and Jackson's hot take on the lottery. "Are you satisfied with your life in its current form? And if not, why not?" — Jackson Lester Find Jackson: SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lester_jackson (https://soundcloud.com/lester_jackson) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackson-lester-5812ba15a/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackson-lester-5812ba15a/) Find Tay: Rejection Collection: https://rejectioncollection.vercel.app/ (https://rejectioncollection.vercel.app/) Big Action | Tay's consulting company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taypattison/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/taypattison/) Books Mentioned: Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir We Need to Talk About Kevin — Lionel Shriver Atomic Habits — James Clear People & Concepts Mentioned: Tom Scott — NZ rapper (Home Brew, Avantdale Bowling Club), Jackson's favourite artist; "the personal is universal" Kofi Stone — UK rapper, another of Jackson's current favourites Dexter and the News Agent — artist behind "With You," Jackson's song on repeat Doechii — rapper discussed; confirmed Tiny Desk performer Kendrick Lamar / Eminem / Joey Badass — early influences on Jackson's writing Rap Genius — website for breaking down rhyme schemes and lyrical structure Jody Blatchley ("Jodeo") — Tay's snowboard coach; unshakable confidence Jesse Itzler — entrepreneur/author; quarterly habits, Kevin's Rule (mini adventures), and the misogi concept Rejection therapy — collecting rejections as a practice; Tay's commitment to 5 asks per day The "personal is universal" — idea attributed to Tom Scott: specific stories resonate more than generic ones

13. 

    13 Mar 2026

    FutureCast 0006 - Charlotte Rand: The Light on the Other Side of the Prism

    Charlotte Rand is a creative matchmaker and the driving force behind the network at AUFI (Ask Us For Ideas, soon to be Ask Us For Introductions) — a company that connects brands with the right creative agencies to solve their biggest challenges. She's built relationships across every sector and stage of business, from Chanel to a startup selling vampire-themed tampons, and works with some of the most remarkable creative problem solvers in the world. Originally from New Hampshire, Charlotte has called London home for the past seven years. Charlotte is one of those people I've been lucky enough to build a friendship with where we skipped the résumé exchange — we just liked each other as humans first. In this conversation, she shows up thoughtful and reflective, wrestling honestly with big questions about where the world is headed and what a meaningful life looks like. We get into: why the most personal thing you can share is also the most universal, using yourself as a prism to split white light into something only you can make, the Cherokee parable of the two wolves and which one you're feeding right now, how a startup called Vampons turned menstrual care into the Liquid Death of tampons (and why the best opportunities are the ones you almost ignore), what the spiral teaches you that a straight line never could, the moment you realize a place hasn't changed but you have, why trust might be migrating from institutions back into our own bodies, the creative Renaissance that technology could unlock if we let it, and what's actually holding you back from the life you want. Guest Question for Next Episode "If you could do anything, what would you be doing? How close do you feel you are to doing that? And what's holding you back?" Find Charlotte: AUFI (Ask Us For Ideas) | Creative matchmaker https://aufi.com/ (https://aufi.com/) On LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotterand/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotterand/) Find Tay: 10,000 Ideas (project sandbox mentioned in this episode) Futurecast: https://futurecast.fm (https://futurecast.fm) Land Library: https://www.landlibrary.co/ (https://www.landlibrary.co/) Nature Club: https://nature-club.co/ (https://nature-club.co/) Life-time Studio: Books Mentioned: Braiding Sweetgrass — Robin Wall Kimmerer People & Concepts Mentioned: Anna — the prism metaphor for individuality Rick Rubin — art as exploration vs. known outcomes Nelson Mandela — returning to a place unchanged to see how you've changed Thomas Breghiato / ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle) — LA-based creative collective Notpla — London-based material innovation company (seaweed-based materials) Vampons / Brie (founder) — vampire-themed sustainable period care startup iNaturalist — app for identifying plants and wildlife The Emerald (podcast) — mythic lens on modern life, individualism The two wolves — Cherokee parable about which inner wolf you feed The spiral vs. the straight line — progress as cyclical upward movement Santosh (yogic principle) — contentment and feeling you have enough Jesse — friend working in physical therapy, AI-proof profession Stoic philosophy — controlling what you can in uncertain times

14. 

    13 Mar 2026

    FutureCast 0005 - Ed Thurlow: Trading the Surplus of Your Passions

    Ed Thurlow is the founder of S33D.life (http://S33D.life) — a distributed seed and story library turned living atlas of the world's ancient trees. What started ten years ago as an idea to use cryptocurrency to subsidize transparent hemp trade in Colombia has evolved into the Ancient Friends Network: a platform where you map ancient trees, mint NF Trees, share songs at banyans, and send whisper messages through nature. Based in Norfolk, UK, Ed is part gardener, part vibe coder, part pilgrim — building at the intersection of Web3, biodiversity, and the belief that every gardener is a futurist. Ed and I share a mutual friend in Max, and this conversation had the energy of two people meeting for the first time but already speaking the same language. Ed showed up from a gray Norfolk spring with a decade of quiet conviction about a project most people would have abandoned — and the timing felt right, with vibe coding finally making it possible for him to build what he'd been dreaming. We get into: why watching oak leaves come out after years of traveling felt like coming home, what happens when you stop working to survive and start trading the surplus of your passions, a ten-year journey from Bitcoin and hemp seeds in Colombia to mapping the world's oldest trees, why the biggest elephant ever recorded led to the oldest people on earth and a twinkle in their eyes that billionaires are missing, a tree radio where you can listen to every song shared at every banyan on the planet, sending whisper messages through ancient trees that your friend can only pick up by going into nature, the poetry tree at Equilibrio festival, predicting Max would appear in a top hat and a skirt within 30 seconds, why effectiveness beats efficiency when you're choosing what to build, and the difference between asking AI for answers and asking a tree. Links: S33D.life (http://S33D.life): https://www.s33d.life/ (https://www.s33d.life/) Books Mentioned: The Faraway Tree — Enid Blyton People & Concepts Mentioned: Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO) — on redefining what intelligence means Alan Watts — being completely selfish as the most selfless act The San / Bushman communities — the oldest living group on earth The Ghost Elephants — Disney documentary about searching for giant elephants in Angola's highlands The Woodland Trust — UK ancient tree mapping organization What3Words — location tagging used for early tree mapping prototype Forest (app) — phone timer that grows a tree when you don't touch your screen Tāne Mahuta — one of the biggest trees in New Zealand The Buddha & Genghis Khan — Tay's dream tree visitors (playing poker) Bela — organizer of the poetry tree at Equilibrio festival in Portugal Max — mutual friend, top hat and skirt energy Tony Robbins — state first, then thoughts follow Bitcoin mining model — inspiration for the NF Tree minting mechanism Equilibrio — festival in Portugal Loveable / Codex / ChatGPT — tools Ed used in his vibe coding journey Andrew Robinson (previous guest) — left the "morning person" question Andy's morning person question premise: everybody is a morning person if you're five years old and it's Christmas

15. 

    26 Feb 2026

    FutureCast 0004 - Andrew Robinson: Who Cares That Curiosity Killed The Cat... At Least It Lived!

    Andrew Robinson is a communication coach, endurance athlete, and the founder of The Grit Academy. Over the last 15 years, he's taught door-to-door sales, coached business owners, and worked with teenagers on the skills most adults never learn. He's placed top five in the world in 24-hour obstacle course racing, run all of New Zealand's Great Walks in 10 days, and recently cycled all of the Great Rides in a month. Through Tough Yarns, he's on a mission to encourage people to do difficult things and have meaningful conversations. Andrew was the first person to really coach me. He drilled door-to-door sales methodology into me until I stopped intellectualizing and started doing. In this conversation, he shows up as himself. Honest, exhausted, in all senses of the word — and somehow full of gratitude. We get into: why everyone thinks other people need communication skills but never themselves, the gap between telling people to ask for help and knowing how to hold space when they do, why an honest compliment is free energy, what it means to practice everything you've preached when it's your turn to need it, playing hide and seek with Jesus, and many more tangents. Find Andrew: toughyarns.com (http://toughyarns.com) | @toughyarns on Instagram Projects: Tough Yarns: https://toughyarns.com (https://toughyarns.com) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toughyarns (https://www.instagram.com/toughyarns) The Grit Academy | Communication Coach Lasting Pages (book learning tool mentioned in this episode): https://lasting-pages.vercel.app (https://lasting-pages.vercel.app) Books mentioned: Never Split the Difference — Chris Voss To Sell Is Human — Daniel Pink Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Mark Manson Everything Is F*cked — Mark Manson Atomic Habits — James Clear People & concepts mentioned: Jordan Belfort — Straight Line Persuasion Robert Cialdini — Influence Daniel Pink — everybody is in sales David Whyte — the conversational nature of reality Ted Lasso — "Be a goldfish" IHC New Zealand The Dunning-Kruger effect Rejection therapy / Cringe Club

16. 

    25 Feb 2026

    FutureCast 0003 - Erin Stafford: Living A Life That Not Only Looks Good, But Feels Good Too

    In this conversation, I have the pleasure of speaking with Erin Stafford. Erin is a full-time speaker, author of The Type A Trap and is an absolute sweetheart of a human being. She was a human-doing for a long time (and still often is). Currently, Erin helps people and organizations figure out how to perform at the highest level without destroying their health and relationships in the process. Erin has lived many lives to earn her perspective. She's been an advertising exec at MTV, a celebrity stylist in Hollywood, a jewelry designer, a fashion journalist, a news reporter, and the chief marketing officer of an $11 billion healthcare company that grew 27x through the pandemic. It was that last chapter — leading a team that scaled from 4 people to 75 while staffing 50,000 nurses across the country — that finally broke the pattern and forced her to confront her own achievement addiction. Now she gets on stages around the world to talk about what she's learned and how to live a life that not only looks good, but feels good too.

17. 

    4 Feb 2026

    FutureCast 0002 - Luca Ponticelli: Travel Ethics, Surf Culture, 1970s Naples

    The conversation delves into personal reflections, the impact of tourism and gentrification, cultural integration and language, surfing culture and localism, emotional intelligence and self-reflection, experiences with anger and conflict, the egg cracking theory and personal growth, parenting and future aspirations, and emotional awareness and child rearing. We go into the topics of parenting and lifestyle changes, living a performative life, exploring desires and values, and the creation of ambient music and film. The discussion provides insights into the complexities of parenting, the performative nature of life, the exploration of desires and values, and the creative process of making ambient music and film. The complexity of human nature and personal relationships, exploring the blurred boundaries between personal and ideological aspects of life. It also touches on the process of film production and the pursuit of passion, as well as the importance of understanding personal energy and building healthy habits. The discussion concludes with reflections on planning for the future and the importance of personal connections. Takeaways Openness and tolerance in a globalized world The value of critical thinking and kindness in parenting Parenting and lifestyle changes Living a performative life Exploring desires and values Ambient music and film creation Complexity of human nature Exploring personal relationships Chapters 00:00 Emotional Awareness and Child Rearing 36:42 Parenting and Lifestyle Changes 47:20 Living a Performative Life 01:05:17 Exploring Desires and Values 01:12:06 Ambient Music and Film Creation 01:17:33 Personal vs. Ideological 01:23:12 Visual Storytelling 01:29:44 Transition to Filmmaking 01:36:08 Diet and Daily Routines 01:43:06 Planning for the Future

18. 

    15 Jan 2026

    FutureCast 0001 - River Roberts: Long Conversations Experiments

    The conversation begins with a discussion about physical practices such as planking and the potential for new challenges. It then transitions into a deeper exploration of self-love and curiosity in relationships, highlighting the importance of setting boundaries and understanding introversion and extroversion. The conversation delves into the nuances of introversion and extroversion, exploring the differences in feelings and experiences in various social situations. It also touches on the impact of digital communication on introversion and extraversion, highlighting the challenges and dynamics of digital interaction. The conversation delves into the concept of balance and its connection to technology, as well as the role of libraries and collective knowledge in society. It explores the impact of technology on human behavior and the importance of maintaining a balance in the digital age. Additionally, it discusses the significance of libraries as spaces for collective knowledge and the preservation of indigenous wisdom. The conversation delves into the concept of nature's rights and the attribution of legal personages to natural entities. It explores the contrast between natural systems and man-made systems, highlighting the complexity and balance of nature compared to the limitations of human-created legal systems. Additionally, the discussion touches on podcasting aspirations and the idea of field notes as a format for sharing ongoing learning experiences. The conversation delves into the concept of planning mini adventures, embracing enthusiasm, and exploring the tension between anticipation and expectation. It highlights the value of planning and experiencing mini adventures, the importance of embracing enthusiasm in life, and the dynamic between anticipation and expectation in conversations and experiences. Takeaways Self-love through slow pace Curiosity in relationships Introversion vs. Extroversion Digital Introversion vs. Digital Extraversion Balance is essential Technology and its impact on human behavior Nature's Rights Legal Systems vs. Natural Systems Planning mini adventures Embracing enthusiasm Exploring the tension between anticipation and expectation Chapters 00:00 Connecting Through Physical Practices 41:52 Understanding Introversion and Extroversion 01:21:05 The Role of Libraries and Collective Knowledge 01:58:21 Nature's Rights and Legal Personages 02:12:39 Podcasting Aspirations and Field Notes 02:35:04 Mini Adventures and Planning 02:46:57 Embracing Enthusiasm 03:05:03 Tension Between Anticipation and Expectation

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

8 ratings